PatsDraft.Com

2016
Season Blog.

Pat
Vs Cincy.

7-Things-For-Sunday.

By
TOM

Greetings
Pats Fans,

First
off I just want to thank all the fans of this site. I have been
promoting my books for sale primarily on this site. As a result, I
have sold almost 500 books in the past year. Thank you for your
support and patronage, both are greatly appreciated. I cannot tell
you how happy it made me when I read that report. So thank you Draft
fans and Patriot fans alike, and mostly thank you to all the fans of
my books and website worldwide.

2nd
Game Back.

By
TOM

1.
Preseasons over-
Well last week could not have worked out any better. In a game we new that
was going to be Brady's real preseason, quickly turned into a real
preseason game.

Cleveland
just couldn't get out of their own way and had to keep subbing in QBs. You
could even say that they played five QBs in that game like it was
Preseason. They started Kessler and when he got injured they put in Pryor.
Then they put in Whitehurst, and when he got inured they put in a 4th QB
who had played prior, Pryor, back in. Then they stuck their fifth QB in,
an injured Whitehurst.

So
it had the feel, in a lot of way, like a Preseason game. Even Garoppolo
got into the game. Usually Brady cries when he is forced to come out of a
regular season game. So the Pats don't bother. But Garoppolo went in and
finished the game like it was Preseason.

The
Pats even started subbing in players we never heard of. "He's worked
really hard and gets better every work," BB said about Elandon
Roberts. "He and Woody Hamilton both played a decent amount
defensively. We'll see how it looks on film. They're a couple of young
guys who came in and played and showed up. Everybody just keeps working to
get better, and when they get an opportunity, they show up and make the
most of it." Woody who?

They
subbed-in some guy named Woody Harrelson. Oops, I mean Woodrow Hamilton.
"Just starting with Elandon, I think obviously a guy that we've had
in through training camp and saw some things in his skill set that we
liked as a player, as a linebacker," BB said. "He works
extremely hard, he loves football, he's really trying to improve and get
himself better and takes to the coaching. Really been very pleased with
his approach to everything. There's obviously a lot he can do to improve
on and get better. I was happy to see him go out and make some plays there
on Sunday. There are some plays that we went back and looked at that we've
got to get better on and that's true of the defense as a whole. But
certainly has a very explosive mannerism about his play, his playing
style. He's really instinctive. He does a good job of reading the offense
and being able to decipher what they're doing pretty quick. So just a
young player that we're trying to improve and trying to get better. Trying
to see, hopefully, we'll just keep seeing that improvement here as we go
forward.

"He
had an opportunity like a lot of young guys out there. Woodrow Hamilton
was another one and all of our guys that played on Sunday that, again,
just coming out of the previous week we're just trying to get better than
we were the previous week, so that's our main goal for everybody out there
on the defense." They were subbing in second tier guys in like it was
preseason.

They
were even changing their scheme up to see something new. "We played
some of our calls with our three big defensive linemen in there [Branch,
Brown, and some guy named Woody]", BB said. "Usually, most of
the time we have two and that also led to Rob Ninkovich playing more as an
outside linebacker in certain situations, certain calls, so we really had
both ends in there as well as three big guys instead of two ends and two
big tackles. I thought that those guys did a good job. We played the run
with good consistency all day. We defeated blocks. This is a very good
double-team, downhill running game with a great back and those guys did a
good job on the double-team blocks. We did a good job of staying on blocks
and not creating space in gaps for the backs to attack. We tackled well
but the linebackers played well, too. Again, run defense is team defense.
No one guy can stop the running game. Everybody's got to have control of
their area of the line of scrimmage or a good back like [Isaiah] Crowell
is going to find it. It was good team effort from the running game."
I was such an odd game.

2.
We're On To Cincy-
All this talk that Lewis is a bad coach and Dalton is a bad QB is
ludicrous. They both are very successful regular season guys. They might
not have a Playoff win, but they have won a ton of regular season game.
And this is not the Playoffs, this a Regular season game.

We
just spent the past few months witnessing the difference between winning
QBs. We saw Jacoby develop into a Preseason winner. Even his win against
Houston was more Preseason game than regular season game, because of Darth
Goodell's Thursday Night Football idiocy. Away teams just don't have time
to game plan, so he won. When a team had the time to game plan, the Bills,
he lost.

We
saw Garoppolo develop into a regular season winner. "I think when you
come in as a young player in the league and you're preparing to play and
you don't have the opportunity to get in there and get as much experience
in games," McDaniels said. "You work hard at it, you try to make
sure you're as prepared as best you can, and then I think when you get in
there you realize all of those little things that your coaches talk about,
and that you've studied during the week, and the film that you watch, the
meetings, and the tip sheets and the things that happen in practice that
you learn from, how very valuable every single one of those is by itself.

"I
think that when you have an opportunity to know that you're going to play
in a regular season game, prepare that way and then learn from it and do
it again the next week, I think that's extremely important because now
hopefully you really understand what it takes, how much work it requires
to be totally prepared to see anything that you could see on a Sunday, and
then you stick with that preparation. You don't change your routine. Now
you know what it's like to do it as a starter and you want to work as hard
as you can to make sure that you feel totally prepared and ready to go
each Sunday that you go to the stadium, whatever your role might be.

"And
those guys, both he and Jacoby [Brissett], they'll know that they could
only be one play away from being in the game, and so your preparation
shouldn't be any different than it was when you were starting games and
you knew that you were going to play on Sunday afternoon." But we
have no idea if he is Playoff winner yet.

Then
we had the best playoff winner take over. "He’s so
efficient," Andy Dalton said. "He gets the ball out of his hands
quick. He gets his guys the ball. Guys make plays for him. You can tell
he’s got full control over everything they’re doing on offense. He’s
so good because he gets all the guys to play for him, regardless of
who’s in there. He’s won with a lot of different guys out there.
That’s why he’s one of the best." We saw all three levels of QBs
this season.

So
don't pretend that the stunning post-season failures of Lewis and Dalton
have any effect on this game. "Alright, you know with the Bengals, I
think this is obviously a very successful franchise, particularly over the
last five years," BB said. "They're at the very top of the
league in terms of wins, playoffs, divisions, so forth. They've had
tremendous success and I have a great amount of respect for the way this
franchise started with Paul Brown and Mike [Brown] and Pete [Brown] and
the job that they do.

"Marvin
obviously does a great job, his staff. There's a lot of continuity with
the Bengals even though they've had some changes to the coaching staff
through the years, particularly this year with Hue [Jackson], that they
still have a lot of continuity in what they do. They keep doing the same
things with Coach Lewis' plan regardless of who the different coordinators
have been and who the personnel have been. They've been able to replace
those people, players and coaches, and continue to achieve a lot of
success on the football field.

"Marvin
does a great job with the team, their fundamentals, their execution,
again, their overall consistency. They're very explosive offensively. They
have great skill players and a solid offensive line and a good
quarterback. Defensively, a very disruptive front. They have a lot of
heavy hitters at linebacker and safety, talented corners. [They] added I'd
say a strong dimension in the kicking game with [Alex] Erickson, good
specialists, well coached there. Darrin Simmons does a great job; one of
the best special teams coaches in the league. This will be a big and tough
test for us this week, a very good football team, well coached, a lot of
talent. I have a lot of respect for the Bengals from top to bottom."
Last years Playoff loss was clearly not their fault. As they put them into
position to win, and lost it do to the pure stupidity of two idiots.

I
keep flashing back to the game a couple of years ago when we only scored
6-points, and the Bengals' defense kicked the crap out of Brady and the
offense. "I think they give you a lot of looks with it. They get up
there and come. They get up there and just bring one guy, they get up
there and don't bring anybody. They get up there and bring guys from the
edge. It forces you to commit your protection inside to them and then the
guys come from the outside in. Yeah, they do a good job of that," BB
said. "They have a good package of it. We do a decent amount of it,
too. We've practiced against it against our defense going back to the
spring so we've seen probably as much of it as they've seen it from
themselves. You still have to block it, they still have a good package off
it, and they do a good job disguising it. But we've worked on it. It's a
good package, but we just have to do a good job with it depending on what
play or protection we have called.

"We
just have to do a good job of executing. But it could be a number of
different things. I think that's the hard part of it, is they're up there,
they may be coming, they may not be coming. They may be up there to draw
your attention to them so somebody else can come or they may be up there
and their good blitzers: Burfict, Maualuga, Vincent Rey, Dansby. They're
all [good]. They can get pressure and good matchups, and run gains and
stuff like that. They do a good job of it." It amazes me that so many
people seem to be underestimating the Bengals in a regular season game.

3.
The Draft-
Two huge must watch games coming up today. Ohio State @ Wisconsin, and
Alabama @ Tennessee. The Pats will be looking for some big time players in
the Draft next year. They have no long term contracts on their edge
players. They might lose a Corner or two, and they might need an ILB to
replace Collins or Hightower. Also, don't be shocked if they are looking
for a big RB to replace Blount. And would anyone be upset if a top tackle,
like Cameron Robinson, dropped to them at 32. What if they trade Garoppolo
for a top ten pick. Suddenly everyone on the field is in play in these
games:

Alabama
VS Tennessee:

#93
Jonathan Allen- 5-T, 6-3, 294SR-

#56
Tim Williams- EDGE 6-4 244SR–

#22 Ryan
Anderson- EDGE 6-2 253-

#9 *Da'Shawn Hand-DE, Jr 6-4 278-

#26
**Marlon Humphrey- CB, 6-1, 198-

#4 Eddie Jackson S 6' 194 SR-

Dalvin
Tomlinson- DT, 6-2 307-

Da'Shawn Hand- DL 6-4 278-

#10 Reuben Foster- ILB 6-1, 240
SR-

#74
Cameron Robinson OL 6-6, 327 JR*-

#88 O.J. Howard TE 6-6, 242SR-

#1
Robert Foster WR 6-2, 191 rJR-

#11
Gehrig Dieter WR 6-3 207 rSR-

#11
Joshua Dobbs QB 6-3 210 SR-

#1 Jalen Hurd
RB 6-4, 240-

#6
Alvin Kamara RB 5-10, 215-

#3
Josh Malone WR 6-3, 200 JR-

#8
Derek Barnett EDGE 6-3 265-

#29
Evan Berry- S 5-11 207 JR*-

#23
Cameron Sutton CB 5-11 186-

Ohio
State Vs. Wisconsin:

#6 **Sam Hubbard EDGE 6-5, 265-

#59 *Tyquan Lewis EDGE 6-4 260-

#8 *Gareon Conley CB 6' 195-

#5 *Raekwon
McMillan LB 6-2, 240-

#24 **Malik Hooker-CB 6' 195-

#16 *J.T.
Barrett QB 6-2, 225-

#54 *Billy Price- OL 6-3, 315-

#4 Curtis
Samuel- RB/WR 5-11, 200-

#5
Corey Smith WR 6-1. 195-

#65
Pat Elflein OL 6-3, 300-

#6
Corey Clement- RB 5-11, 219-

Dan
Voltz- OL 6-3 301-

Ryan
Ramcyzk OL 6'6" 314 rJR*-

Robert
Wheelright, WR, 6-3, 203-

#47
Vince Biegel, OLB, 6-4, 245-

#8
Sojourn Shelton, CB, 5-9, 173-

*Jack
Cichy LB 6-2, 233-

4.
2nd Game Back QB-
Okay, we saw Brady come out last week and make every right decision, like
he was paying in slowmo instant replay. "There were a lot of
contributions from a lot of places, and I think that's what makes a good
offense," Brady said. "Not just always throwing it to one or two
guys, but spreading the ball around and throwing the ball where they're
not. Wherever they want to cover, you've got to figure out other places to
go with it and have guys in those positions to be able to make the plays.
We certainly did a good job of that last week, but it always changes. Over
the course of the year, teams will evaluate you different ways and try to
take away different things, and you have to be able to adjust, too. That's
why things play out over a long season." But that was last week,
against the worst defense in the NFL.

This
is his 2nd game back after a month off, and things will not go well for
him this week. "You can't, after four games or five games, you don't
really know where you're at yet," Brady said. "It takes a while
to figure out what you're really good at, how other teams are going to try
to defend those things, and how you're able to adapt to the changes that
they're making, too. I think that's the part of the fun part of the
strategy of the game. You can't come in here every week with the same plan
and say, ‘Alright, well let's just Xerox copy what we did last week and
see if that will work again.' I think you always have to find ways to
reinvent yourself over the course of a season, and the teams that can do
that are usually the ones that win the most games." They are also
playing against a defense that has hurt him in the past.

In
the 2nd game back, you actually see things better than the 1st. He will
see things better than last week, but every decision he makes will be
wrong. It will be the exact opposite of last week. Like in basketball, I
can see the passing lane open with a defender in front of me and guys
shading to me on both sides, and decide to dribble into a crowd. Or I see
the lane to the basket, and decide to pass when they are falling off me.
Or just shoot the jumper over the top for no apparent reason. I see the
right thing to do, and make the wrong decision over and over, and swear
repeatedly at myself heading back on defense.

Brady
will struggle terribly this week, making the wrong decision after wrong
decision, and he will know it. He will see it, and get even more
frustrated. I have seen in myself for years. The 2nd game back zone is one
of the worst feelings in sports.

He
just has to get the ball to his elite playmakers, and let them make plays.
"I was saying the other day, 'Martellus has been so productive, being
here for such a short time, [and] Gronk, what he did last week and him
kind of getting back to where he wants to be is such a big part of our
offense because those guys are so dynamic," Brady said. "They're
tough matchups. They're both 6-foot-6-plus, 270-pounds-plus. They're hard
matchups for anybody because they're just very unique players." Gronk
and Bennett give him such an advantage in the passing game.

But
when you're in the 2nd game back zone, you see the right play to make, and
then go and do the other thing. "It's great because like on the
touchdown to Martellus, one of them, they focused all their coverage on
Gronk, and then Martellus gets the one-on-one and he gets the ball,"
Brady said. "Again, that's what makes a good offense. If they're
going to double cover someone, it means other guys have single coverage.
If you're playing with a guy like Gronk, it's great for you because you're
not the one getting double covered. So you'll have opportunities and you
have to take advantage of the opportunities when you get them." He
will miss most of those opportunities in this game.

Even
though he has more weapons this year than last year. "They've all
been playing really well over the course of the first five weeks,"
Brady said. "The skill players have done a great job when they've
gotten the opportunities. Again, it's just distributing the ball. Whether
we're running it or throwing it. Which part of the field we're throwing
it: outside, inside, deep, short, everybody has to play a role. You play
that role. Like that long one to Hogan in the game, I would say that he
was the last guy that I would ever except to get the ball on that play on
the deep one on the right sideline. But he's in the position and he gets
open, and now he gets the opportunity. You never know when your number is
going to get called. So when it does you've got to take advantage of
it." He will struggle to make the instant decisions that he made look
so easy last week. It is what it is.